Introduction
Introduction ''' '''A long time ago, in a galaxy far far away. To go where no man has gone before. That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind. The ideas of space exploration and colonization have captured humanity’s imagination since we realized there were other worlds out there. Though the Earth is our home, we now know it won’t be a safe abode forever. As far as we know, this pale blue dot, this blue marble, this spaceship earth, is a garden of Eden in a vast, empty universe. With so many billions and billions of stars out there, we often wonder why we haven’t heard from any aliens. Some think this is a paradox, some say its proof we are alone. Maybe its just bad luck: we’re not in the right place at the right time. The human experience suggests something far darker: intelligence is self destructive. The forces of rational intelligence do not seem sufficient to fight our evolutionary dark side. Whatever it is, we know we need to try getting out there, because we are likely to have a disaster, man-made or natural, that will threaten our very survival. We may even want to leave the Earth as a nature preserve. Before we can do anything else, we have to find a way to get to our new homes. As of today, only about 500 human beings have gone to space. Thousands more have dreamt up countless ways to get there. This book is dedicated to all those dreamers and visionaries who wanted to escape this world and create a future for humanity among the stars. I have always been excited to see what the future holds. As a child, I was promised a revolutionary future by countless Discovery Channel documentaries. There would be half-mile towers, an international space station, stealth fighters, and touchscreens. In my short life of 26 years, all of these predictions have come to pass. Now I hear stories of artificial intelligence, self-driving cars and drones that fly, quantum computers, nanotechnology, and gene editing entering our lives. When I read these speculations, I can see an amazing world in my mind’s eye. I know it may all come to pass when I am long gone, but it fills me with an excitement hard to describe. Space travel is a powerful idea that captures the imagination like no other. In my spare time, I have scoured the internet, sometimes obsessively, reading and finding any and every idea relating to space travel. I encountered many websites that clearly showed passion and dedication, and ideas so far out there that I would have an immediate urge to know how a person’s mind could work in such creative ways. I wished that I had the same vision. I built a massive archive of bookmarks and ideas, and they would always be swirling in my mind. I wanted to be able to keep all these ideas in one place, and finally I decided to do it myself. I must say that the best site I have found is the Island One Society’s Earth-to-Orbit Transportation Bibliography maintained by Andrew Nowicki. It has served as a great source of information, inspiration, and an example of what makes a website great. This book intends to be a resource and reference for those who are interested in space travel and a human civilization amongst the stars. I start by introducing some basic concepts and ideas pertaining to space, such as the extremes of space, time, and speed, along with the current state of the art for cutting edge space research and technology. I then introduce what I consider to be a concise and simple classification of propulsion systems, followed by a catalogue of specific propulsion methods. The next section focuses on Astroengineering, or structures and technologies that are critical for a manned future in space. I hope it excites and inspires readers to change the world, and to ensure that mankind can live long and prosper.